[Closed] is this stupid or a practical idea - Cyclists safety

They already do this in the US with trucks, but the other way round. The equivalent would be to route trucks in the UK so they have no right turns. Obviously works better in cities laid out in a grid structure.

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=3005890

of course it will add a bit of journey time

leading to more speeding and more aggressive, impatient driving from trucks....

...but 3 right turns does not = 1 left turn in a modern city, based on an ancient city with turning restrictions and many one way streets

The trouble is - right turns are the time consuming, congestion causing turns, so most city traffic systems, London in partular, has been developed around discouraging or designing out right turns across traffic. A bar on left turns would require huge amounts of redesign.

The problem also isn't only trucks - theres a size and style of truck that is particularly dangerous to cyclists when its turning left - but its the design of the truck itself and not the visibility or the turn.

Lots of vehicles, even quite small ones have huge left side blind spots but most vehicles would knock a cyclist to the side when the hit them turning - which is nasty but not necessarily lethal. Things like dump trucks have very high, open sides so as they turn across you instead of pushing you to the side, like say a flat sided transit, or a bus might, you get knocked down and under the wheels.

A simpler solution to apply would be to make it part of the MOT to ensure a truck is properly designed in the first place.

^ I second that, poor design could be eradicated by filling in the blanks.

Why don't they put mirrors on the problem corners, rather than the vehicles? A bit like the ones you see opposite tricky exits so the driver can see if anything's coming.

Another, and possibly more pragmatic, way of doing it would be to encourage lorry drivers to use their indicators (most are actually very good at this, but it only takes a few who don't....) and then encourage cyclists to not undertake when they are indicating left. It seems a bit unfair that all the responsisibilty for cyclists safety should be placed on the lorry driver, maybe it would be better to work at the problem from both ends...

[i]i suggest banning left turns[/i]

Or just don't ride up the left side of vehicles? Seems the easier option.

[i]encourage cyclists to not undertake when they are indicating left[/i]

And what if the vehicle turns without indicating?

encourage cyclists to not undertake

That would be my solution. I did one 10 mile ride in london, including a bit riding around in the middle so we could go over tower bridge. Every lorry or bus I saw had at least 1 cyclist undertaking or trying to, even when pulling away from lights or approaching a pinch point. I am not in any way suggesting any death so far has been caused by a rider (i do not know any facts) but i saw many close calls, where the driver had to stop mid maneuver upon seeing the cyclist diving in the gap, that its a miracle riders like that are not killed.

so, what about when the lorry overtakes and turns, when the cyclist is still next to the lorry?

tbh, this has been discussed to death on here already, just making a point...

Just make it illegal for a cyclist to filter inside trucks and busses at junctions. It's already f'ckin stoopid, so just ban it. Stop the cycle lane 20 metres back from the junction, or allocate some of the pavement as cycle lane.

Personally i think cyclists who ride on the road and do not hold a drivers license should be required to take a test similar to the driving thoery test.

Personally i think cyclists who ride on the road and do not hold a drivers license should be required to take a test similar to the driving thoery test.

One more barrier to children cycling. Great. 🙁

How many accidents are caused by cyclists not understanding road signs, markings or speed limits? (i.e. the kinds of questions covered in the driving theory test).

[url= http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/public/cyclesafety/article3758677.ece ]Motorists are to blame in 68% of crashes with cyclists[/url] and they, presumably, have full driving licenses. So it hasn't helped there.

Personally, I'd be inclined to start with all the drivers who hold a driving license, but haven't taken a theory test..

Yep, and mandatory retests every five years too.

How many accidents are caused by cyclists not understanding road signs, markings or speed limits? (i.e. the kinds of questions covered in the driving theory test).

Motorists are to blame in 68% of crashes with cyclists and they, presumably, have full driving licenses. So it hasn't helped there.

By that logic you could do away with the driving test.

Nah it just suggests that the driving test isn't that useful at preventing people crashing into cyclists. Perhaps it needs more stuff in it about passing cyclists safely etc?

Motorists are to blame in 68% of crashes with cyclists

Wouldn't you expect the cause of the accident to be proportional to the vehicles involved? 68% seems a phenomenally low number.

So if you can encourage cyclist not to get killed you'll get a much better result (as they're individually more likely to be at fault) than trying to get drivers not to kill cyclists (as they weren't likely to anyway).

Wouldn't you expect the cause of the accident to be proportional to the vehicles involved?

It was looking specifically at collisions between cars and bikes.
So no, if motorists and cyclists were just as bad/good as each other then I'd expect the blame to be 50/50 or mainly in the "not attributable to one fault" category.

So no, if motorists and cyclists were just as bad/good as each other then I'd expect the blame to be 50/50 or mainly in the "not attributable to one fault" category.

Whatever, it's pretty obvious that the best result is to educate the smaller group than the larger one.

If there are 10x as many cars as bikes on the road you'd need to weight those figures to reflect that, so it becomes 95/5 at an individual level...

Eh? Why???

You're saying that if we looked at 20 separate collisions between a cyclist and motorist and found that 19 of them were caused by the motorist then we could conclude that cyclists and motorists were equally to blame?

You've lost me there.

so, what about when the lorry overtakes and turns, when the cyclist is still next to the lorry?

Motorists are to blame in 68% of crashes with cyclists and they, presumably, have full driving licenses. So it hasn't helped there.

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There seems to be a common theme when talking cycle accidents or provision. Suggestions for improvements are given (by individuals or groups) and then others come along to shoot them down, by finding situations where it "wouldn't help" so plans are shelved and any potential benefit (outside the "wouldn't help" scenarios) is lost.

Imagine you were coming up with rules for driving for the first time; Seatbelts; wouldn't help if crushed by a lorry = remove them.
Warning signs on sharp bends; some chav will still go too fast = dont bother installing.
etc, etc.

Can you imagine how many extra deaths there would be?!?

Eh? Why???

You're saying that if we looked at 20 separate collisions between a cyclist and motorist and found that 19 of them were caused by the motorist then we could conclude that cyclists and motorists were equally to blame?

You've lost me there.

It's pretty simple.

If you have 1000 tigers and one sheep in a field and the tigers kill the sheep half the time and the sheep commits suicide half the time what would you do?

Try and stop the tigers killing sheep?

OR

Try and stop the sheep committing suicide?

%age has nothing to do with that tho, there are after all only a finite number of cyclists for cars to crash into. The proportion may not change but the volume might.

Again, eh???

So by making cyclists without a license sit a theory test you reckon we might reduce the number of car/bike collisions but you'd expect the proportion of blame to remain at 68/20/12?

If you have 1000 tigers and one sheep in a field and the tigers kill the sheep half the time and the sheep commits suicide half the time what would you do?

That's an entirely different scenario - unless you think motorists actually want to hit cyclists - and you're deflecting away from the discussion of the figures.

But you're absolutely right - the best way to avoid the tigers eating the sheep is to ban the sheep from the field entirely and make it walk amongst the chickens instead.

But you're absolutely right - the best way to avoid the tigers eating the sheep is to ban the sheep from the field entirely and make it walk amongst the chickens instead.

Why not fit a camera on the left mirror of the lorry to eradicate the blind spot FFS for the price of a new lorry how much extra would this cost.

[i]Why not fit a camera on the left mirror of the lorry to eradicate the blind spot FFS for the price of a new lorry how much extra would this cost.[/i]

And how would the cyclist sitting alongside the lorry know the driver had looked in the camera?

Just don't ride up the inside of vehicles unless you know they're not going to start moving.

Not going in the blind spot eradicated the 'blind spot' problem. Needs education though.

And how would the cyclist sitting alongside the lorry know the driver had looked in the camera?

I agree with avoiding the drivers blind spot but it is occasionally hard to do when they come up behind you partially overtake and then turn left while you are alongside.

Rather than relying on the lorry driver seeing me I'll just continue not to ride up the left side of vehicles if there is a chance of them moving.

[i]I agree with avoiding the drivers blind spot but it is occasionally hard to do when they come up behind you partially overtake and then turn left while you are alongside. [/i]

But if you're in the primary position in the road that can't happen.

Yeah, I'm all for that

You're "all for" completely banning bikes from the road? 😕

[img] [/img]

failing that I'd try and adjust the behaviour of the smallest group as that would be the best result for the least effort.

Yep, least effort (cheapest) and the least effective.

You're "all for" completely banning bikes from the road?

The cyclists do not need to know he's looked in the mirror mounted camera, the lorry driver needs to have seen them. As cyclists (the bottom of the road food chain) we rely on drivers to be in full control of their vehicle and have a full understanding of what is going on round them. as for not riding up the inside of a lorry well that is clearly not happening.

You trust strangers with your life when you could easily take personal responsibility for it yourself?

I am truly shocked.

I assumed you were referring to cycle routes.

Why would removing sheep tracks save the sheep from the tiger?

My problem with all this is that I'm an experienced road cyclists and an experienced cycle commuter, I'm maybe not the right person to get involved in this.

Why would removing sheep tracks save the sheep from the tiger?

That quite literally sent a chill down my spine

The idea of the cameras would be to stop the cyclists who are not savvy enough to realise they should not be going up the inside the lorries being run down I am not saying that we should all just ride up the inside of lorries turning left as for your comment about trusting strangers with your life of course you need to do that to some extent or do you check behind you every time you hear a car behind you to see that they have seen you/ aren't texting their mate or talking on their phone even driving a car there has to be some form of trust with other road users.

If the sheep had nice tiger free routes they wouldn't get killed by the tigers

Now you're talking my metaphorical language.

The sheep is just as entitled to the field as the tigers - so there should be some segregation to keep the sheep safe from the tigers while it uses the field.

😀

I'd be interested to know what folk make of this:

Apparently..

The [new EU] regulation stipulates that all vehicles over 3.5 tons need to be fitted with new wide angle (class IV) and kerb mirrors (class V), that meet with the new legislation, [b]by the 31 march 2009[/b], this is in addition to the front view mirror introduced in January 2007.
The new directive improves the driver’s visibility of pedestrians or cyclists when the vehicle is making left turn (right hand drive vehicles) or right turn (left hand drive vehicles).

--

Is this true? Anyone know what the "EU regulation" is? And if they have to have these mirrors, by law, then why are there still such big blindspots?

Here's an interesting video from a reasonably articular HGV driver.

At 3:00 he states that [b]he has no real blindspots[/b] and using the mirrors he can see all round the front of his cab and down the side of the lorry.
At 10:00 he demonstrates this by showing us the mirrors.

So if the HGV drivers CAN see cyclists in their mirrors then why are they not prosecuted for death by careless driving when they don't check the mirrors and squash someone?

And if they do have blindspots then aren't they in violation of the EU regulation above?